Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos
Salzburger Festspiele, 2026
Manfred Honeck, Ersan Mondtag, Kate Lindsey, Christina Nilsson, Eric Cutler, Ziyi Dai, Johannes Silberschneider, Christoph Pohl, Jonas Hacker, Blaž Stajnko, Fabian-Jakob Balkhausen, Leon Košavić, Michael Porter, Lukas Enoch Lemcke, Theodore Browne, Jasmin Delfs, Anja Mittermüller, Marlene Metzger, Fabio Dorizzi
3SAT broadcast - 15th August 2026
Almost 100 years to the day that this revised version of the Ariadne auf Naxos, was the first Richard Strauss opera performed at the Salzburg Festival, the festival itself co-founded by the composer who conducted the performance on 21st August 1926. If there is a case of history repeating itself at the festival after 100 years, you could also see some parallels between in the state of the world and the direction it is headed now, and the great changes happening in Vienna in the same period of the 20th century. That is certainly something that the current Salzburg production directed by Ersan Mondtag sets out to remind us ...in his own particular way, of course.
The thing you have to remember about Ariadne auf Naxos is that it is a comic opera (partly) and a satire on the arts and commerce (partly), on the preciousness of the artistic genius and the challenges they face in bringing their creation into the world, but it's also about the value of art and culture, how it reaches out and touches people. It's also much more than that thanks to the genius of Hofmannsthal and Strauss (and considerable rethinking about the work along the way after its initial first version failure as an accompaniment to Molière's comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme), so it shouldn't come as any surprise when a contemporary director attempts to put their own spin on the uneasy relationship between art and commerce, particularly when it is being performed in Salzburg for a predominantly wealthy audience.
I'm not sure any of them could afford to build a mansion on Mars, but there might be a few who already have their names down for the first commercial flights to the planet when SpaceX have those operational in a few years' time. Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire, could certainly afford it and you would have to think he is just the kind of person lampooned in the prologue of the opera as 'The Richest Man in Vienna' (it couldn’t be anyone else) - the kind of person with enough money to sway and distort cultural work to suit his own agenda or dinner party. But the work is also an observation on how the artist can thrive when confronted with adversity (something the creators here knew all about in the genesis of this opera), how they even need challenges to prevent art from navel gazing pretension. It must simply find a way to communicate and touch an audience.
Ersan Mondtag is not known for satire or political commentary in his stage productions, instead just making them as colourful and surreally grotesque as possible. It's his vision of opera and it has to be said that it always looks stunning. As a one-act opera the set design succeeds in both parts of the opera, the Prologue well-handled with few of the director's usual eccentricities, but it has Kate Lindsay at the centre as the Composer and she is not going to be overshadowed. The combines opera seria/opera buffa is where all the stops are pulled out, a visual fantasy feast with an elaborate set, models of monstrous beasts, Eco floating up into the heavens and all the usual characters in body suits and extravagant costumes, all in an explosion of colour and whirling dancers.
The dancers are used mainly to visually represent Ariadne's desolation, in the process bringing rather more movement to this part of the opera than you would traditionally see and avoiding (although for the sake of satire, I'm not sure it should be avoided) any static operatic delivery. Indeed rather than contrast the two very different opera styles, Mondtag shows their unity as art and their relationship to the artist, Zerbinetta singing her advice on affairs of the heart to the lonely Composer rather than Ariadne (taking advantage of the fact that the Composer is a trouser role). It's a celebration of art as life, not pure and noble but one that comes from living, loving and feeling pain, needing the experience of genuine human feelings in order to be a greater artist. Aridane's redemption would not otherwise be as moving as it is in this opera.
Elina Garanča was meant to play the role of Ariadne but withdrew as she didn't feel prepared for the role. Christina Nilsson stepping in does wonderfully, but perhaps due to the directorial choices comes over a little on the cool side. Ziyi Dai is a warm-hearted and mature Zerbinetta, superb in the role (I believe Mondtag wished to turn things around and bring out the serious side of Zerbinetta and the comic side of Ariadne, although I don't think this comes across entirely). Eric Cutler sounded a little stretched in places but was suitably human and heroic as Bacchus. And how good is Kate Lindsey? The role of the composer is one she has sung before of course, most notably in the fine Glyndebourne production, but she just seems to find greater depth and power in her vocal expressiveness every time I hear her (most recently in Maria Stuarda at Salzburg last year). There may have been a little over-acting.
Some (many?) may think setting Ariadne auf Naxos on Mars is taking it a little too far (literally), but it's unimportant really and no more fantastical than Naxos being an enchanted island of mythology. No different either from Glyndebourne setting the opera in Glyndebourne, or Claus Guth setting it in the Kronenhalle restaurant in Zurich. It's a satirical work that can often be site specific in order to speak directly to the local audience. What matters is whether the opera makes its points and whether it succeeds in touching on the beauty of the human sentiments at the heart of it as well as entertaining, both playing out simultaneously. It's about finding what is needed in the remains of the present to look to and believe in a future. Will art save us? Perhaps not, but there is some comfort to be found that all the troubles and suffering ("Lass meine Schmerzen nicht verloren sein") resulted in the creation of this beautiful unique creation.
Perhaps not totally unique, as Strauss was drawing heavily from Mozart for his latest creations, and we already had Donizetti's brilliant satire of the theatre and opera seria in Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali. All showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Undoubtedly they will remain the same in Elon's mansion on Mars in our new era of decadence to rival the decadence at the turn of 20th century Vienna and Mondtag, it has to be said, is good at doing decadence in his productions. Even on Mars however, Strauss and Hofmannsthal's work endures as "die heilige unter den Künsten", Manfred Honeck conducting the Vienna Philharmonic with delicacy right through to that searingly beautiful ending; the wealthy patrons of the festival got the spectacle for their money, and those who loathe modern productions got plenty to moan about. Something for everyone then, even if overall I personally found life on Mars a little on the cold side.
External links: Salzburg Festspiele
